These Familiar Memories
by Green-san
Summary: The memories hinted at in 'Streets' and the up-coming 'Rooms', here explored and put into the limelight. Read it to fully understand the War of the Four Gods and their warriors.
1. Please tell me this is just a nightmare

_After Sanji leaves, pain and devastation is the only feelings whirling inside..._

Pain.

Heat.

Physical.

Emotional.

Like his chest was caving in on itself, his very life seeping out through the wound on his chest, as the fever wracks havoc in his body, burning his insides and making him see strange things and memories. He can see their faces. Smiling, crying, angry, it feels like they were there right next to him once again.

But it is only memories, he knows that, somewhere deep inside he realizes it. Though, it feels much better thinking that the memories is the present, then the pain is ebbing out and disappearing.

The bed is cold even if he is so warm, no one lies beside him and gives and takes body warmth. No one else other than the stars outside the window looks down at him. He presses his palms into his eyes, tries to focus on the physical pain, the pain he can handle, not the one in his crushed heart.

Then, a cold hand ghosts over his hot forehead. He sits up with a jolt, looks around the room and tries to find who ever had touched him, panting. But no one is there. It had only been his _fucking_ imagination. Again.

Feeling the dizziness increase and taking over, he feels how his heavy body falls down on the mattress again.

He closes his clouded eyes, tries to fall into sleep so that he can dream instead. Hopefully, it will be a good dream, a dream filled with happy memories. Not like the nightmare he has been living these past months.


	2. Just get back up

_The life the other live and lived is one of war, even if they don't know that yet..._

The sound of accords being struck on a guitarr played in the air, went carried by the wind and was remixed with the birds chirping. The soft breeze brushed though his blonde hair just as gently as a lovers hand, while his actual lover lied in the grass beside him. A mumble resembling words drifted to his ears as he struck more accords, so he mumbled back through his cigarette.

"What?"

"What are you playing?"

He stopped his moving hands to take his cigarette from his lips and blew some smoke out, watching it disappear into the clear blue sky. "'Summer of 69' by Bryan Adams. You should know it."

"Hmpf, it's you who likes western music, not me."

A grin spread over Sanji's lips as he turned his head to look down on the teen lying next to him. His green hair almost melted together with the grass, golden earrings glittering in the sunlight along with tired, dark grey eyes. Bending down, he brushed a kiss over firm lips, a kiss which was returned with the same ease and gentleness.

"Well, you should try listening to it some more, it's really good."

Still lying down, Zoro shrugged. "Why do you play it? Everything you play seems to have some damn meaning."

Then, the appretice cook's smile faltered a little, his blue eyes got a sad tint and he looked up into the sky again as a he took another drag on his cigarette. "I play it when I feel down, helps me get back up on my horses."

He heard the other sit up beside him and a hand with a soothing tumb appeared on his waist. "Can I do anything?" Soft murmurs in his ear eased his mind as he leaned his head back against Zoro's shoulder.

"No." _"No, you can't help me with the fact that my friend got severly hurt yesterday in an super natural war you know nothing about. But you can ease my heart if you hold me like this... 'Cause this is the best days of my life, I think."_


	3. I'm ready to break it, are you?

If they could just shut up... Why, oh why had he ended up in such a noisy class? Sure, they wasn't as bad as Ace's little brother and they was on a field-trip, but it was a little too much if he had to take his refuge to the roof to get some calm. Not that the slight chill were bothering him, it was more about the principle.

With a sight, the green haired teen looks up at the all but sparkling sky, covered with stars and a moon so bright there was no need for any other light to see. A light breeze ruffles in his short hair and one earring, the edges of his dark blue yukata fluttering slightly in the wind where he lie on the roof with hands behind his head as a pillow. In a way, it was nice to be able to relax like this once in a while, as his father used to say. With a life of war before him, he should take every chance he got to be a regular teenager.

Suddenly, a sound to his left startles him to sit up, his senses already on its' way to be honed to react to any possible threat. It was probably just a raccoon or something someone had hit over, but it was still best to be on guard.

With a frown, he watches a blond head rise over the roof's edge, followed by pale hands and a leg which has escaped from the confines of the yukata so that its' owner can climb up. Zoro can feel a slight blush bloom on his cheekbones as he looks at Sanji climbing up on the roof, but feels laughter well up as he sees how the other has solved the problem with the yukata having no pockets. In his mouth, there is a packet of cigarettes stuffed, muffling the sound of surprise he tries to utter as he sees Zoro.

Deciding to ignore him for his own good, the young swordsman lies down again and tries to shut out the sounds of footsteps coming closer. A slight bump and he knows the other is sitting next to him. With the sound of a lighter, he also knows that the blond has light up one of his cancer sticks, the smell of it proving him right as the smoke reaches his nose.

He should leave. He should stand up and walk away, so that he wasn't tempted to do something he shouldn't do. Sure, there was nothing wrong with being homosexual, but not with a regular human who knew nothing about his true self. But as he peers up at the other, basking in the moonlight, it is just too hard to do so. Surely, if he just kept quiet the two of them could be next to each other without breaking anything, right? And without him breaking any kind of rules and orders…

"A penny for your thoughts." Yeah, so much for keeping quite. As soon as he was home in Kyoto again, he will force his own mouth to commit seppuku. But now, when Sanji looks down with him, seemingly shocked by the sudden words from his usually grump classmate, it dries up and he feels like he can't breathe. The moonlight shimmers on golden hair, reflecting in a blue eye he could drown in and making pale skin even paler. Surely, this must be what the moon god, Tsukiyomi, looks like.

"Well… I'm just thinking, do the stars decide our fate, or are we free to do as we like?"

The words came as a chock to Zoro; he wasn't expecting that kind of answer, but it made the gears in his head turn. Should he let rules not even spoken to him decide what he did? Decide whether he should act on what he wants or not? Sanji takes his cigarette from his lips, blowing out smoke before looking away from the other and speaking up again. "Say something marimo, this is getting embarrassing."  
Clearing his throat slightly, he opens his mouth and words come out, while his thoughts keep running through his head, rushing towards an answer. "I don't think so; it's we ourselves who puts us in situations where we are ordered around. So you can't blame the stars." _"Gods, on the other hand…" _

"Tch, what are you, some kind of expert?" Though the words are the usual tease, the tone is different, much softer without venom. He sits up, his trains of thought stopping at a certain destination as he hears the change.

"And what do you think?" His tone is casual, nothing like his usual shouting and growling, no mean nicknames attached. Waiting, he looks on as the blond smokes some more, before words flow out with the smoke once again.

"Well, if we put ourselves in situations where we lose control, then what kind of situation is this? Who of us is directing it?"  
"Both of us." He says it with a shrug, his heart beating like crazy as he waits for a reaction, hoping that they can keep it like this. Keep it calm and outside the boundaries they've set up for themselves by acting as they do and others' expectations. Since even if everyone expected them to fight, there was no one other than them here now. Here, on this roof, they could defy everything tying them down.

"And what if we want different things?" Once again the voice is soft, yet firm as a smile starts to play over pale lips. Lips he would kill for to kiss.

"Then it's just that simple and we can go back to fighting."

Sanji's shoulders jerk slightly and their eyes meet in silence. Suddenly, both know they were thinking about the same thing, hearing the same undertone in their exchange of words. Taking a deep breath, Zoro leans forward slowly, for the first time since his initiation nervous about doing something. But as he sees Sanji lick his lips and lean forward too, his heart takes a leap and he throws the rules and orders out the window, pressing his lips to pale ones.

Instincts taking over, he scoots a bit closer, bringing his right hand up to cup a cheek as their lips moves softly against each other. The blond is a better kisser, he can tell, but he quickly picks up on it, making up for lack of experience with passion.

As the kiss break, before they get too much into it, the green haired teen knows something has changed inside of him. Looking into blue eyes, the bangs on the blonde's left side having slipped to the side, he knows he doesn't give a damn about not loving someone who knows nothing about what he is. He will break without this man by his side; it would be easier defying gravity than leaving him.

Brushing Sanji's cheek, he speaks up again, his voice just above a whisper.

"I know what I want to do."

"What?" A smile plays over the blonde's lips and he leans his face into the caress, pressing a light kiss against a calloused thumb.

"I want to do that again." Laughter comes over Sanji's lips as he leans in and brushes his nose against Zoro's before sealing the deal with another kiss.

"Then let's do it again."


	4. Lazy train ride home

_Decisions made under a setting sun, unsaid promises reaching into the future_

Warm evening sun. The low sound of the train in the background. Sleepy from previous orgasms. His hand intertwined with Sanji's, their heads leaning against each other, forehead to forehead. That was one of those times Zoro wouldn't have minded if time had stopped, so that the two of them could ride the train in the sunset forever. But that wasn't possible. They had to get back, the cook to his chef training and he himself to his war.

The scent of the blonde's last smoke drifted up from his mouth, adding to the relaxed atmosphere, promising everything and nothing. That cigarette had been put out just before they boarded the train together, the next one would be lit when they went their separate ways. He didn't want that.

He wanted those beds they shared on Love Hotels to be their own. He wanted to wake to Sanji's cooking, wanted to have a sparing session with him before school. He wanted to... Shit, he sounded like a woman. But still, that impossible dream laughed him in the face, so close yet so out of reach. And it bugged the hell out of him.

"Oi, eyebrow."

"Mm?" The tired mumble was followed by their foreheads rubbing together, strands of hair getting in the way and skin heating. He wanted this kind of touch more. This sleepy and warm touch which felt like _home_.

"Let's get an apartment of our own." Didn't matter if he had a war to attain to, he could sneak out so that the cook didn't notice. The guy slept like a clubbed ox after sex, after all.

"What? Have your brain finally gotten taken over by the moss on your head or what?" And if anyone wanted him to get a kid, he had that covered too. The feelings he had for her wasn't as strong as those for Sanji, but it would work out, she had promised to help him.

"Tch, as if. No, I'm serious, Sanji." His words were low, he uttered the blonde's name in a whisper, but he knew that he heard it. Slowly, they sat up, looking into each others' eyes. He knew Sanji had Zeff to think of, that he loved his Baratie with all the crazy chefs, but he still hoped. They could get an apartment near both Baratie and the Byakko palace, he had the contacts for that. Waiting in silence, he heard the voice in the speakers announce that they were getting closer to their stop.

He watched curled eyebrows draw together, blue eyes scanned his face and he wanted to kiss those wetted lips. But he waited. The train slowed down. The woman in the other end of the car stood up and picked up her things. When the doors opened, his blonde lover also stood up and pulled at his hand.

"Okay. Do you know any good realtor?" He tried to hide the joy he felt inside, but he couldn't help the big grin which spread over his face.

"Nope. But I'm damn sure we can find one."

Hand in hand, they got of the train and walked over the calm streets. Walked towards that corner with the tree where Zoro turned to the left, to find his way to his Emperor. But before he did that, they shared that kind of lazy kiss which was reserved for lazy Sundays at home. And soon, the kisses would be exchanged in their own home.


End file.
